Have a listen to Jack White's debut solo record

Look at that picture. Jack White is contemplating a razor. He's probably thinking "I could form a band with this razor". Jack White likes forming bands. He's already been in three - The White Stripes, Dead Weather and The Raconteurs. Last week, he formed a band with a jam sandwich, and called it The Defibrilators. They're headlining the NME tent at Reading in August.

Amazingly, however, Jack is also preparing for the release of his first solo album. It's called Blunderbuss and it's due out in April. Love Interruption is the first single and, if you will indulge an incredibly pretentious anaolgy, it continues the razor theme.

The razor I'm talking about is Occam's Razor - the principle that "simpler explanations are, other things being equal, generally better than more complex ones." That neatly sums up Jack White's approach to music: The simpler his songs are, the better they turn out. And Love Interruption sounds like it was dashed off in an hour.

Appropriately for a recent divorcee, the lyrics aren't especially positive about relationships. The refrain " I won't let this love disrupt, corrupt or interrupt me any more" is bad enough, but Jack also claims: "I want love to murder my own mother, and take her off to somehwere like hell or up above."

Hmmm... Maybe someone should take that razor off him. Not the metaphorical one, the other one.

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Lana Del Rey interview off-cuts

So, last week I met up with Lana Del Rey, who was coughing and spluttering after cancelling her gig at London's Koko venue the night before. Demure and softly-spoken, she was absolutely charming. More homebody than homewrecker, despite whatever impression you may have received from her lyrics.

Our chat formed the basis for a BBC profile piece, which was published over the weekend. But I thought you might like to see a fuller transcript.

Can you remember the first time you thought "I can write a song?"
I didn't really start writing until I was 18 and my uncle sort-of taught me six basic chords on the guitar. I realised I could probably write a million songs with those six chords - so I moved to New York and I took a couple of years to just write whatever I wanted.

That's quite a late start.
It's really late.

Had you been creative in other ways before that?
Yes, in some ways. I don’t know if I'd say it was my focus. I never really thought about writing my own music but I did like to sing.

Do you remember the chords your uncle taught you?
It was G, C, A. It was D minor, A minor and some diminished chord as well. Some trick, some shortcut. When I learned F, which I assumed would be easy, I was like "fuck". F was just never going to happen. Four fingers? Never going to happen. It's too hard.

There isn't much guitar on the album. When did you switch to piano?
I didn't switch because I don't really play piano – unless it's a Wurlitzer and I'm sort of just holding sustained chords. On my first record, I played guitar throughout most of it. With this one, I started working with this guy Justin Parker who's never really done anything in pop music. I just started freestyling over his sustained, melancholic chords. And that was how, really, the second evolution of my style began.

You said you were always a singer... Where did that start? Do you remember singing with your family when you were young?
I remember singing with my mom and with my dad. There were musical children's movies, like Mr World and Raffi.

In my house, my sisters loved Grease.
We loved Grease, me and my sister. [Sings Summer nights] They're really beautiful, those songs.

... Click here to read the rest of the interview

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An open letter to Labrinth

Dear Labrinth,

I wish to bring to your attention a minor error in the lyrical content of your (otherwise excellent) new single, Last Time.

In verse one, you state: "I ain't leaving Paris until I get a French kiss". However, in France the French Kiss is not called a French Kiss. It is instead called "baiser avec la langue", which literally means, "kiss with the tongue". If you spend a lot of time in Paris asking for a French Kiss, the response will largely be "je ne sais pas ce dont tu parle" accompanied by a haughty shrug of the shoulders.

Please amend your song accordingly.

Thanks and goodbye,
Mrdiscopop

Labrinth - Last Time


If, by any chance, you felt there wasn't enough vocoder in that song, Labrinth has made all the vocoder parts available as a "stem" so you can enjoy them in splendid isolation. Knock yourself out.

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M.I.A. and the arms aloft quandary

One of these days, rappers will discover that putting your hands up in the air isn't as difficult or amazing as they think. Look, I just did it now. And again. My hands go up and down at will. And I'm not alone. I was in a school classroom recently (18 years ago) and the kids were putting their hands up all the time. In the supermarket this weekend, I even saw a woman of very advanced years put her hand up, in order to reach a packet of Bourbon biscuits that had been placed on a high shelf.

Eventually, I went onto Wikipedia and checked up on this phenomenon. Apparently, the ability to raise your hand above shoulder height is common to all primates. It's no big deal. Chimps can do it less than half an hour after they're born.

So come on, rappers, let's have some REAL challenges in your music. I have some suggestions:

• Fold your legs over your shoulders like you just don't care
• Pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time for Detroit
• Throw your hands up (having previously cooked them into a warming casserole, then tried to swallow them prompting an involuntary gag reflex) in the air

While this message filters through to the hip-hop community, here is M.I.A., whose supremely slinky new single Bad Girls contains several "hands up" moments.

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Bon Jovi + Bon Iver = Bon Joviver

Is it me, or has the new music tap started to run dry? It's probably just a temporary thing. At this very moment, the music industry is evacuating all its staff to an underground bunker in preparation for the hailstorm of hate that will greet next week's triple whammy of new releases from Lana Del Rey, MIA and Madonna.

In the meantime, here is a lovely thing: Bon Jovi, sung in the style of Bon Iver, by musical miscreants Miracles Of Modern Science.

Bon Joviver - You Give Love A Bad Name


More like this, please.

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Sleigh Bells: Comeback Kid video

In the video for Comeback Kid, seen below, Sleigh Bells frontwoman Alexis Krauss bounces on a mattress while clumsily grasping a rifle. We do not recommend bouncing on a mattress while clumsily grasping a rifle. Bouncy castles are more fun.

Sleigh Bells - Comeback Kid

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